Thursday, August 4, 2011

Dilemmas

One dilemma after another

Obamacare: The Democrats Worst Nightmare

OBAMACARE HAS COMPLETELY TRAPPED THE DEMOCRATS ON FISCAL POLICY. In order to pay for Obamacare’s trillions of dollars in new spending, they had to raise taxes by $500 and raid Medicare by another $500 billion. As a result, ALL THE LOW-HANGING REVENUE AND SPENDING FRUIT ARE ALREADY GONE. As even The Washington Post's Ezra Klein admits, THE DEMOCRATS MUST NOW ARGUE FOR HIGHER TAXES, AND NOT JUST ON THE WEALTHY. In order to pay for all their entitlement programs, the middle class is going to have to pay more, too. But Ezra can admit this because he doesn’t have to win elections; Democrats in public offices do. That is the reason you haven’t seen a Democratic budget since Obamacare became law and it is the reason you will not see another one till at least 2013.

The Tea Party protestors knew this back in 2009. The Democrats are like a junkie with spending. They need one fix after another.

The Left’s Attack on the TEA Party

“WELL, IT CERTAINLY IS A SPITTING AND THE SPUTTERING OF PEOPLE WHO ARE, WHO’VE BEEN DEEPLY DEFEATED,” Krauthammer said. “I mean, they were routed. They were up against a small minority of one half of one-third of the Congress and they got — they lost everything. They got routed. Look, this was their Agincourt, you know, Henry V outnumbered by the French, three to one. The opposition, the liberals, hold the Senate. They hold the White House. They hold the media, which had been leaking and parroting the White House line all the way through, and they still got defeated.”

“I THINK THIS IS SORT OF A PATHETIC RESPONSE. IF YOU HAVE NO ARGUMENTS, WHAT DO YOU DO? AD HOMINEMS. You attack, you throw names out. But I have one slight disagreement with you [about this] being a conspiracy. I DON’T THINK THESE PEOPLE HAVE THE WHEREWITHAL TO ORCHESTRATE A THREE-CAR MOTORCADE. The reason for the repetition is lack of intelligence and lack of originality. These are people who are slothful.”

“Look, what it means to me is YOU’VE GOT PEOPLE WITH NO INTELLIGENCE, NO ORIGINALITY, NO IMAGINATION,” he said. “They are sputtering. They have lost. No arguments. What do they do? They want ad hominems. They want epithets. So, somebody uses it on the air — ‘Ah ha, that’s a good one. I’ll use it.’ I don’t credit them [with] the intelligence or the sort of, what it takes to put together a conspiracy.”

The story is that as Mark Twain and novelist William Dean Howells stepped outside one morning, a downpour began and Howells asked Twain, “Do you think it will stop?” Twain answered, “It always has.” The debt-ceiling impasse has, as things generally do, ended, and A POST-MORTEM VALIDATES CONSERVATIVES’ PORTRAYAL OF BARACK OBAMA AND THEIR DISMAY ABOUT THE DANGERS AND INCOMPETENCE OF LIBERALISM’S LEGACY, THE REGULATORY STATE.

FOR WEEKS, YOU COULD NOT FLING A BRICK IN WASHINGTON WITHOUT HITTING SOMEONE WITH A DEBT-REDUCTION PLAN — UNLESS YOU HIT OBAMA, whose plan, which he intimated was terrifically brave, was never put on paper. In a prime-time spill of his usual applesauce about millionaires, billionaires and oil companies, he said, yet again, that justice demanded a “balanced” solution — one involving new revenue. His whistle into the wind came after Washington’s most consequential Democrat, Harry Reid, proposed a revenue-free solution….

….Obama’s presidency may last 17 or 65 more months, but IT HAS BEEN IRREVERSIBLY NEUTERED BY TWO HISTORIC BLUNDERS MADE AT ITS OUTSET. IT DEFINED ITSELF BY HEALTH-CARE REFORM MOST AMERICANS DID NOT DESIRE, RATHER THAN BY ECONOMIC RECOVERY. And it allowed, even encouraged, self-indulgent liberal majorities in Congress to create A STIMULUS THAT CONFIRMED CONSERVATISM’S PORTRAYAL OF LIBERALISM AS AN UNDISCIPLINED AGGLOMERATION OF PAROCHIAL APPETITES. This sterile stimulus discredited stimulus as a policy.
Obama’s 2012 problem is that HE DARE NOT RUN AS A LIBERAL BUT CANNOT RUN FROM HIS LIBERALISM. The left’s narrative for 2012 is that by not offering another stimulus, Washington is being dangerously frugal. This, even though his stimulus — including cash for clunkers, cash for caulkers, dollars for dishwashers (yes, there actually were money showers for home improvements and greener appliances), etc. — led downhill….

The Democrats in 2008 were set up so it was virtually impossible to lose. They go into 2012 with it virtually impossible to win.

The Progressive Crisis

…That he’s asking these questions at all is a testament to THE COLOSSAL FAILURE OF DEMOCRAT HOPES IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. The “transformational President” failed to bring about the Great Realignment Democrats thought they saw. HEALTHCARE WAS A POISONED CHALICE; THE DEBT CEILING BILL WAS A DISASTER. The electorate keeps trending right and the Democratic establishment, more than thirty years after Ronald Reagan’s inauguration, is no closer to solving the problem of the New Right than it was when Jimmy Carter turned the White House over to the Gipper.

GREENBERG DIAGNOSES THE PROBLEM AS A CRISIS OF LEGITIMACY:
Just a quarter of the country is optimistic about our system of government — the lowest since polls by ABC and others began asking this question in 1974. But A CRISIS OF GOVERNMENT LEGITIMACY IS A CRISIS OF LIBERALISM. IT DOESN’T HURT REPUBLICANS. If government is seen as useless, what is the point of electing Democrats who aim to use government to advance some public end?

Voters like Democratic ideas and policy proposals, notes Greenberg, and on a wide range of issues, the public prefers Democratic positions to Republican ones. THE PROBLEM IS THAT THEY DON’T THINK THE DEMOCRATS CAN OR WILL MAKE THEIR IDEAS WORK. The rhetoric inspires; the reality disappoints….